


Merrier All the Time

by APgeeksout



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Romance Novel, Christmas Fluff, Family, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:59:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose have been best friends since that day in the sixth grade when Roman jumped into an uneven fight on Dean's side. For Dean, the warm, close-knit Reigns clan is everything a family should be. Everything his own wasn't. </p><p>Now, Roman and his family are facing difficult times in the wake of patriarch Joseph Reigns's sudden, fatal heart attack, and Dean is right by Roman's side when he comes home to Cincinnati for the first Christmas without Pop. When Dean learns a secret about his own family that Joe had kept for years, Roman's there for him to lean on in turn.</p><p>In helping each other deal, they also come to realize that somewhere along the line they've become more than best friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merrier All the Time

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the [Unconventional Courtship](http://unconventionalcourtship.dreamwidth.org) challenge (though my timing was never right to participate in an official round! /0\\), and spinning off from the summary of the existing Harlequin [ Home to Family](http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.html;jsessionid=DBE5BB2AF9CB0D1A894ED7FE68348B2A?iid=29563&cid=229). Completed with the deadline-support of [WIP Big Bang](http://wipbigbang.livejournal.com).
> 
> The characters' histories here are AU from kayfabe, but are not intended to reflect the performers' real life families or pasts. I've only spent time in Cincinnati for purposes of baseball and museums, so apologies in advance for any geography/local culture fails.

“I'm so jelly.” Nikki sighed, and slumped dramatically against the wall beside the time-clock. “Ohio has seasons. Four of them! You might even get snow for Christmas!”

Roman chuckled. “Seasons are overrated. I came to Florida to get away from them.”

He swiped his own badge through the reader and waited for her to punch out before they started through the waiting room and toward the lot. It was true that he hadn't ever loved the cold – even when football had been mostly good memories and satisfaction he'd tolerated the bite in the fall air more than relished it – but the weather wasn't the part of the trip that had been gnawing at him the hardest.

“Hey,” she said sternly, “if I'm feeding your fur-kids, you have to promise me you'll make a snow-angel if you get the chance.”

“Don't call them that,” he groaned. “Makes me sound like I've given up. They're cats.”

“Pampered, babied, spoiled-rotten cats,” she agreed, her smile a dare to contradict her that he was way too smart to take. “Need your spare key,” she reminded him as they passed through the last set of automatic doors and into the warm night.

“Glove box,” he said, and they followed the sidewalk as it curved around the building toward staff parking, chatting about her Christmas plans along the way.

“You know I love her, but--” Nikki broke off in the middle of a well-worn complaint about her sister and stiffened beside him, pulling her bag in closer to her body.

He looked up to see what had given her pause, and picked out the shape of a man slouched against the brick wall in the pool of shadows where one of the security lights had burnt out. The figure straightened a little at their approach, and called out, “So, what's a guy gotta do around here to get a sponge bath from a cute nurse?”

The words came in a familiar rasp that drained all the tension back out of him, and Roman gave Nikki's arm a reassuring squeeze before he started moving forward again and shouted back. “Starts with better manners than you've ever had, asshole.”

He opened his arms and Dean pushed away from the wall and stepped in, throwing an arm around his neck and sagging into him just a little, the way he always did when they met again after too long apart. The gesture was as familiar now as the sharp smell of his soap and the scrape of his couple days' worth of beard against the shoulder of Roman's scrub top. “Good to see you, brother.”

Roman took his weight gladly and dropped his head onto Dean's shoulder for a beat. “How long you been out here? Figured you'd call when your deal wrapped up.”

Dean tightened the arm around him for a moment before he drew back. “Not long. Would've gone by your place,” he said, “but I didn't figure your neighbors would take too kindly to me pushing in your back door.” He shrugged, and slanted a grin over Roman's shoulder, where Nikki had drawn up even with them.

“Dean, Nikki Bella. Nikki, Dean Ambrose. Don't worry. He's only a danger to himself.”

Dean made an indignant noise at that, but offered Nikki a hand.

“So, you're the wrestler?” she said, taking the handshake and casting an appraising glance over him, head to toe. Roman fought a smile, watching her take in long legs and broad shoulders, dimples and messy curls with an approving nod.

“In the flesh,” Dean said with a wink that, even in the low light, drew attention to the fading shiner beneath his left eye. He smirked at Roman. “What're you telling people about me?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?” he said while Nikki laughed.

“Only the juicy stuff. I promise,” she said.

“Good. I'd hate to think he's been selling me short.”

“Nobody believes even half of what I say about you. Even when it's all true,” Roman said.

Dean nodded soberly. “I am pretty fucking unbelievable,” he said to Nikki, his tone confessional.

“Well, we all have our crosses to bear,” she said, the picture of compassion, though Roman could tell she was one wry comeback from cracking into laughter.

Roman snorted, knowing the pair of them could go around like this all night, feeling lighter than he had all day – lighter, maybe, than he'd been since August – watching two of his favorite people click. “You eat yet, Mr. Incredible?”

“Not since lunch.”

“Nikki, you want to grab a bite with us?”

Her grin at that was impish, a preview of all the shit she was going to give him when he came back to the clinic after the holidays. “Nope. A girl knows when she's a third wheel.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Keys, please.”

He gave a sigh that was more long-suffering than he really felt in the moment and led the way to his car, leaning in the passenger side to fish his spare house keys out of the glove box while Dean stashed a couple of bags in the backseat. He pressed the key chain into Nikki's hand, and she rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Merry Christmas.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “You too.”

“The fuzzbutts are gonna be in good hands,” she said, squeezing him back fiercely. “You just take care of you.”

“I'll kick his ass if he don't,” Dean offered gravely.

“You'd try,” he corrected, and let Nikki go. He rolled his eyes while she and Dean bumped fists and conspired against him.

 

* * *

 

It was just as well that Nikki had begged off dinner, which ended up being pizza ordered in while Dean borrowed the washer and Roman continued to avoid the last of his packing. He'd been putting it off all week, like somehow he could avoid facing home without Pop, if only he didn't finish filling up his suitcase with spare socks and travel shampoo.

“You oughtta see the other guy,” Dean said and squirmed away from the fingers against his jaw that Roman had used to tip his face to get a better look at the yellow-brown bruise smeared beneath his eye.

“Will I?” he asked. “Match going to be on the next DVD?”

“Probably. Might be online already.” Dean dropped himself onto the couch and propped his stocking feet on the coffee table, stretching to scratch his toes under Felix's white chin, touching off a satisfied purr. “Dunno what they do with all that.”

Roman shook his head fondly. Near as he could tell, “what they did with all that” was to load it up somewhere where it would trigger the alert he had set for Dean's ring name and cause him to watch low-quality match video through fingers that itched equally to patch Dean up and to break down the guys making him bleed. He just hoped Mama and his sisters' kids never got curious enough to look up “Jon Moxley”'s exploits.

“So, you never said: How do you think it went? Your audition?”

Dean shrugged eloquently, shoulders shimmying against the back of the sofa. “Felt pretty good. They let me talk a lot.” He smiled softly, unguarded and almost bashful, and Roman felt himself returning the expression.

Of course they'd wanted to hear him talk. Dean could be magnetic when he wanted to: tangling a crowd up in lines of charming bullshit, spinning tall tales that were just outlandish enough to maybe be true, making promises he might even be vicious enough to keep, spitting out enough jagged shards of hurt and loneliness to nick anybody standing too close.

“Tried out before and nothing ever came of it. Not gettin' my hopes up too high, you know?” Dean shrugged again. Roman did know; Dean had been let down a lot over the years. Didn't let himself hope for even half of what he deserved now.

“Sure. Bet you killed 'em, though.”

Dean's busy hands moved to ruffle up the long orange fur of Oscar's back where the little beggar was edging cautiously into his orbit, sniffing around for leftovers of the sausage and mushroom they'd demolished. Dean looked intently down at his hands scritching over the cat's body and fidgeted until Roman took pity on him with a subject change.

“What I'm hoping,” he said, “is that these monsters will come back around when I get back home. They've been sulking since I got my suitcase out the other day.”

Dean laughed. “That right?” he asked Oscar, scrubbing rough-gentle fingers over his big, broad head, lips quirking into a smile as the cat flopped into his lap with a contented rumble. “They know they're gonna miss you is all. Time comes, you can win 'em back with some tuna water.” Dean looked up at him soberly. “You won't forgive yourself if you don't go.”

It was true. He still regretted picking up all those extra shifts last month, giving himself an excuse for not going back to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving. He sighed and sank onto the couch next to Dean, Oscar's lashing tail smacking him on the thigh. “No, I know. It's just gonna be hard, being there without him.”

Dean nodded sympathetically, and they sat quiet for a minute.

Without preamble, Dean reached over and plucked at the long sleeve of his undershirt, pushing the material up past his wrist to expose the lowest edge of his ink, bold blackwork in traditional patterns. “Hey, I just remembered you owe me a fashion show,” he pronounced. “Lemme see.”

Roman smirked, recognizing Dean taking his turn at the pitying subject change. “Dude, if you wanted me to take my shirt off, all you had to do was ask.”

“Don't I know it.” Dean grinned and stuck out his tongue and rolled his hand in a theatrical _c'mon, let's get this show on the road_ gesture.

He rolled his eyes, but still scooted forward on the couch and pulled his t-shirt up over his head and stripped it down his arms. He tossed it onto the coffee table at Felix, who looked affronted for a moment before kneading it into an acceptable heap and settling down on top of it.

Dean let out a long, low whistle and wrapped a hand around Roman's wrist, lifting and turning his arm to examine the underside of his forearm, the crease of his elbow. “That's so sick.” He reached out with his free hand and traced calloused fingers lightly along the lines that swept over his biceps and up to where the newer work met his older shoulder-piece. “You were already prettier than the rest of us. Now you're a work of fuckin' art.”

He smiled, goosebumps breaking out as Dean's fingertips caught rough against the softer skin at the inside of his arm. Probably, he could have made a smart-ass joke – probably, Dean expected him to – but instead he closed his eyes and kept quiet and still and let himself soak up the warmth of Dean's voice rasping out compliments and his fingers spreading along his collarbone and across his chest.

“For real, man, this is badass.”

“Thanks.” He opened his eyes and examined the work along with Dean. “I think Pop would've been happy I finished the sleeve. Wish I'd done it sooner, so he could've seen.”

He didn't chance looking up at Dean, though he felt his gaze on him heavy as his hand.

“Joe woulda liked it,” Dean agreed and leaned in, looping an arm around his neck. “But you know he was always proud of you already.”

He rested his cheek on Dean's shoulder for the second time that night, and leaned into the embrace. He was being a baby, he knew. He'd had 27 years of good time with Pop, more than some people ever got with their dads. Hell, Dean probably didn't have 27 postcards from his old man tucked into the wrinkled manila envelope of snapshots and ticket stubs and other fragile mementos that had followed him from apartment to apartment and city to city, and yet, somehow he was the one comforting Roman. Still, he huffed out a sigh and let himself be held.

After a moment, Oscar the Grouch, nestling ignored between them, gave a disgruntled mewl, and Dean chuckled, pressed a kiss into Roman's hair, and pulled away.

“The boss has spoken,” Dean said. “He says you gotta finish packing, and I gotta scratch his back until my crap comes out of the dryer.”

“Guess we got our marching orders.” He ruffled Oscar's fur and rose, extending a fist to pound against Dean's. “Still a couple of cold ones in the fridge, if you're ready for another.”

“Oh, I'm always ready,” Dean hit his fist, and they each mimed raising a glass, the familiar gesture ridiculous and comfortable in equal measure.

He retreated to his bedroom, the low rasp of Dean talking nonsense to the cats just audible through the wall, and took inventory of his bags, throwing extra changes of clothes into one suitcase, presents in various states between fully-wrapped and still-in-the-store-bag in another. Before he tucked the last of his toiletries into their bag, he stepped into a shower to wash off the day.

He'd been dreading the trip and feeling guilty about not looking forward to what should be a happy time and finding more and more creative ways to avoid thinking about it even as the holidays drew inevitably closer. Standing under the hot spray, smoothing lather over his skin, he distracted himself once more, this time with the memory of Dean's hands on him, warm and appreciative and exploring.

 

* * *

 

By the time he re-emerged, wearing soft sleep pants and with a packed bag in each hand, he fully expected to be greeted by a crack about jerking off in the shower, followed by Dean's knowing laughter at his complete failure of a poker face. Instead, he found Dean curled onto his side on the sofa, knees bent to fit, soundly asleep. Oscar was a shaggy, ginger-striped blanket perched on his hip, and Felix had made his way over from the coffee table to stretch his tuxedo-patterned length along Dean's chest, purring steadily with Dean's lax fingers curled into his black fur.

It was on his lips to tease them about their fickleness, but the angle of Dean's face on the cushion highlighted the sallow bruising around his eye, and Roman thought about the way they were on the rare occasion that he was sick: nuzzling into him and never far from his side. Maybe they weren't punishing him so much as taking care of Dean as best they knew how. He could understand that impulse.

“Good monsters,” he said softly. “Yes, you.” He leaned down and stroked first one fluffy head then the other, and pushed a thatch of messy curls back from Dean's temple for good measure. Felix and Oscar blinked sleepy yellow eyes at him and rubbed proprietorially against Dean, who didn't stir at all under his touch.

He looked at the way he was bent to fit the couch, and weighed the likelihood that he'd wake up stiff against how rarely he knew Dean managed a deep sleep. He decided not to wake him, instead straightening and passing through to the laundry room, where the dryer was quiet but still warm and full of a mix of Dean's clothes and a few of his own.

He plucked each item from inside and folded, his own onto a pile atop the empty washer, Dean's back into the well-traveled duffel bag they'd come from. Mostly, they were easy to sort out: jeans and briefs all Dean, boxers and scrubs all him. But a few of the t-shirts – all nondescript grey and black – he wasn't sure about, and eventually he just crammed them all into Dean's bag to be figured out later.

When he brought Dean's bag out to rest with his own by the door, he still hadn't stirred on the couch, and Roman recognized the urge to wake him, haul him into his arms, steer him sleep-clumsy and warm into bed beside him for the selfishness it was. Dean needed the sleep more than he needed to make Roman feel cozy.

He lifted a spare blanket – one of the dozens of afghans June had made during her most recent bout of craftiness – from the back of the chair and spread it over Dean and his purring attendants alike. He settled the edge of the blanket over Dean's shoulder and stroked down the line of his arm. Roman watched him breathe steady and even for a few moments more, all the edgy lines and twitches smoothed from his face in sleep.

He hit all the lights along the way and crawled into bed, hoping that Dean would know, when he woke during the night, that there was room there for him if he wanted it.

 

* * *

 

It was the dip of the mattress taking the weight of another person that woke him, though as the rest of his senses kicked in, he registered the faint light creeping around the edges of the curtains and the rich scent of strong coffee, and he realized that the middle of the night had come and gone.

“'Mornin', Sleeping Beauty,” Dean drawled from where he sat, back propped against the headboard.

Roman grumbled something about as articulate as he was capable of this close to dawn and pushed the hair back from his face to look up at Dean, face animated and hair damp from the shower. He quirked a grin down at him and lifted a steaming mug into Roman's line of vision.

“Thought you might need this,” he said. “Elixir of life.”

He stretched and shifted under the blankets, eventually pulling himself more or less upright next to Dean. “Time is it?” he asked, reaching out to take the mug, its enamel surface hot under his fingers as he wrapped both hands around it and raised it to his lips for a long drink.

“Early,” Dean confessed, stretching his legs out long in front of him, one foot bouncing in an idle jig. “'S a long drive. Figured we'd get on the road early. Get there while there's still some day left.”

Roman hummed into his coffee and let himself list to the side until his shoulder pressed into Dean's. It was a good plan. A good plan Dean had taken charge of because he knew what a total chickenshit Roman was being about facing the holidays without Pop. It was too early to talk about feelings, but he figured if Dean could so easily read the anxiety on him, he'd hear his unspoken gratitude too.

 

* * *

 

Dean took the first shift behind the wheel of Roman's Explorer, steering them out of his neighborhood – still quiet and sleepy in the thin light of dawn – to the main drag and onto 275. Roman nursed a travel mug of coffee and fiddled with the radio and let Dean plot their course. Somewhere between home and Ocala he fell back to sleep, lulled by the rhythm of the miles rolling by beneath them and Dean singing along with Willie Nelson under his breath, half-croon and half-grumble.

 

* * *

 

When he stirred again, it was full morning, and Dean was flooring it past a line of semis on a nondescript stretch of Interstate.

“You decide to join me, Sunshine?” Dean slanted a grin at him though his eyes stayed on the road. “Been pretty anti-climactic, playing license plate bingo all by my lonesome over here.”

“Sorry.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, feeling the creases pressed into his cheek where it had tipped against the seat and stretching his leg as best he could in the confines of the car, tightness pulling in his calf and stiffness nagging at his left knee the way they sometimes did when he used them too much or not enough.

“S'alright. I know you need your beauty sleep,” Dean said, throwing a glance behind them before he merged back into the right lane.

The sports-talk channel the radio had landed on ran a segment on baseball winter meetings, and Dean had a lot of opinions about what the Reds' rotation should look like next season. Roman shifted in shotgun and resettled, letting Dean hold court, face animated and gestures expansive, shoulders occasionally shimmying against the seatback in an absent-minded dance.

They talked frequently – Roman calling to check that Dean was still in one piece; Dean calling when he got bored or lonely, pouring out his day into rambling voicemails if Roman was on-shift or sacked out – but Philadelphia was a long way from Tampa and they hadn't had a lot of face-time recently. He could admit to himself that one of the reasons he hoped this try-out worked out for Dean was the purely selfish wish to have his boy back in arm's reach more often.

Even though Dean was never still, he was never distracted either, attentive to everybody else on the road, anticipating lane changes and slow-downs, making a circuit of quick glances at the mirrors, catching Roman's eyes as his own tracked back to the road before them.

“What? Somethin' on my face?”

“Just thinking how you're a way better driver than people'd expect,” he said, and laughed at Dean's indignant squawk.

“I'd kinda have to be, wouldn't I? Since I haven't been creamed on the road between shows yet.”

He nodded. “True. Still think it's a little funny that the guy who lets people use fucking power tools on him in a match – and by the way, warn me when you're gonna do that shit again – is also so careful about using his turn signal.”

“Hey!” Dean protested. “That match put brakes on my car and food in my freezer for, like, a month, man.”

“And took a year off my life, not to mention yours!”

Dean scoffed, but didn't actually dispute that. After a few moment of silence, he said, “It was your pops that taught me to drive. You remember?”

He did; that had been the year Dean had lived with them, while his Mom was checked into rehab somewhere up by Toledo. He remembered piling into Pop's little hatchback in the evenings, after football practice (and the wrestling classes that Dean kept sweet-talking his way into even though he wasn't technically old enough to enroll yet) let out, and letting him navigate them through the city or down the freeway to restaurants Pop had heard good things about. One of them would drive there, with the other taking the wheel for the trip home, and in between, Pop ordered chicken-fried steak and onion rings, chili-fries and bacon cheeseburgers: all the stuff Mama scolded him about, even as she patted his belly affectionately. They'd all bullshit about school and girls – it wouldn't be until freshman year in Florida that Roman would really figure out that he should've been talking about some boys along the way, too – and football. Wrestling, too; Pop had claimed the whole while that they were, somewhere down the line, related to The Rock.

“Yeah,” he said. “Hard to forget that time you tried to turn the wrong way on Colerain.”

Dean laughed, and they were off: breaking each other's balls over things they'd done as dumbass kids, the well-worn conversations carrying them through stops for gas and snacks and the whole length of the state of Georgia.

 

* * *

 

When they got back on the road after lunch – a diner outside Chattanooga where Dean swore he'd once had a life-changing piece of pumpkin-pecan pie (unfortunately, they'd only had cherry or butterscotch in the case today) – Roman took over driving duties, realizing with a sigh that they were only a little over halfway there. It would have been easier and definitely faster to fly, but when he'd started making his travel plans, it'd seemed really important to have his car with him, to be able to roll out without getting permission or bumming Mama's keys.

If he'd been a dumbass in plotting out his itinerary, at least he'd made a good call on traveling companions. For a guy who had never been all that great at sitting still, Dean had, out of necessity from show to show, gotten good at filling long miles. Roman silently thanked whichever suit in Stamford had booked Dean's try-out to bring him into town this week.

Dean slouched low in the passenger seat, tugging a loudly-patterned knit hat – June's handiwork from the phase before her afghan kick – down over his ears as the temperature dropped steadily the further north they tracked. Roman punched the controls to kick the heat up a couple of notches.

“Thanks for coming back with me,” he said. “I mean, I know you could be working this week.”

“Nah,” Dean said lightly. “Nobody books anything around the holidays. Why would the marks pay to come see us beat the shit out of each other when they can get it for free at their own family gatherings?”

“Maybe not, but you're still tending bar in between, right? Missing out on some holiday parties while you're here, making sure I don't chicken out.”

Dean shook his head. “Probably not. Manager at the catering company doesn't like to use us if we're not presentable to the guests.” He gestured at his bruised eye. “She's not a big fan of this noise.”

“She should join the club.”

Dean snickered. “You're not just the president; you're also a member?”

“You know it. Of course, Mama's the founder.” He paused, remembering the way she'd looked at Dean and the fat lip he was nursing when he'd brought him home after his first day of middle-school in Cincinnati and the way she'd always fretted over all his too-frequent bruises and scrapes. “You know she's gonna be all over you when she sees that.”

“'S a price I'm willing to pay for Alice Reigns's Christmas cookies.”

“Ah, there it is. You're using me for access to baked goods.”

“Guilty. I'll try to make it worth your while.” Dean laughed, deep and soft. “What can I say? They're good fucking cookies, man. Think she'll do any macaroons this year?”

 

* * *

 

The hours went by quicker than he expected, with Dean, not being a facebook guy, asking for updates on everyone, and listening intently to Roman's run-down of their lives: the grad students that dropped in on Mama every week (ostensibly for advice, but she suspected mostly to bring her flowers and wine and company), even though she'd been on sabbatical since Pop; June, finally pregnant after years of trying and doctors, with twins due on Valentine's Day; Lydia dating someone for the first time since her divorce was final, extracting everyone's promises to be on good behavior if she brought him to dinner; Autumn back to school to finish her degree, now that the littlest of her kids had started kindergarten; Lyd's twins partway through the sixth-grade, Logan first trumpet in the school band, Leah a forward on the soccer team; the littler ones taking it in turns to get their tonsils out, and do elaborate science fair projects, and lose the class hamster, and do all the other shit that Roman now recognized had kept his folks busy when he and his sisters had all been at home.

By the time Dean had been fully debriefed on the whole crew, night had settled in over all his familiar landmarks, and he was pulling up to the curb out front, careful not to block in any of the small fleet of cars in the driveway. Roman cut the ignition and just took in the front yard for a minute; no snow on the ground yet, but the trees that'd been full and green when he'd come in for the funeral were now bare and spindly, naked even of their usual strands of white and red lights. Those had always been Pop's project.

As he stared out at the familiar brick front of the house - holly wreath on the door, Christmas candles glowing a warm orange in every window - the curtains in one of the living room windows parted, revealing a dark head and a small fist raised in greeting before they fell back into place.

“I think we've been made.” Dean chuckled.

“Guess that means it's definitely too late to tuck tail and run, huh?”

“'Fraid so, brother.” Dean smacked lightly at his chest. “Better get our crap and head in before they send out a reconnaissance party.”

Roman smiled and huffed out a little laugh in spite of himself. “You know us well.”

As it was, they made it halfway up the walk before the door burst open and Lydia's and Autumn's two youngest launched themselves into him, chattering fiercely. He got a squeeze from each of them before they blew past him to repeat the process with Dean and then bustle back up to the door.

“We had cake _and_ hot chocolate after dinner,” Lydia said from the doorway, nudging Kayla and David back through the door to make room for him and Dean and their bags to come in. “The grown-ups are going to be regretting that one all night.”

She let him get all the way into the entryway and set down his bags before she swept him into a tight hug. “There's my little brother,” she said, “I'd almost forgotten what he looked like.”

“Betcha didn't forget a face like this one,” Dean spoke up from behind him. “Your new guy as pretty as me?”

Lydia turned him loose, and while she turned to deal with Dean's sass, Roman worked his way through the receiving line that had formed up behind her: the twins smiling big around mouths full of braces; their younger siblings and cousins greeting the adults quickly and then zipping back to the board game spread out on the living room floor; Autumn, the only one of his sisters nearly as tall as him, leaning in to kiss his cheek; his brothers-in-law ducking in for fist-bumps in between their girls; June taking his hands and pressing them to her belly in the spots where two sets of - feet? It had to be feet, right? - jolted under his palm.

Finally, Mama, stepping into his arms and tucking her head under his chin. He'd first outgrown her in about the eighth-grade, so he was used to being taller, but not to her seeming so _small_.

“Hi, Mama.”

“Welcome home, Baby. Merry Christmas.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed tight. “Did you two eat supper yet? There are plenty of leftovers in the kitchen.”

He chuckled. “You afraid I'm going to waste away?”

“I'm afraid it's been too long since I got to feed you,” she said, and drew back, tilting her head up to examine him, one hand rising to cup his cheek, like she had when he was small. “Let me look at you,” she commanded.

He stayed still, and while she looked him over, he returned the favor. There was less black, more silver in her hair than there had been in August, and there were creases around her eyes that he didn't remember noticing before.

“How you doing, Mama?”

“Better, now that you're all home with me.” She raised herself up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Go make yourself a plate, then come sit with me in the living room.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Good boy,” she said, and patted his chest.

He moved to follow her directions, but paused in the kitchen doorway long enough to watch Dean greet her (“What's up, Doc?”), his arms enveloping her in a tight hug while she pronounced him too skinny. When he let go, she reached up to push the bangs back from his forehead and press gentle fingertips to the puffy skin beneath his eye and cluck disapprovingly over his fading bruises.

Dean found his eyes over Mama's shoulder, and Roman mouthed, “Told you so.”

 

* * *

 

The living room was so full of humanity that Roman didn't notice right away what was different. June and her husband were on the sofa with Mama, Autumn and hers on the loveseat, the kids spread out around an apparently cut-throat game of Monopoly. Finally, it dawned on him: the corner where the tree and presents were arranged was the one where Pop had held court from his recliner for so many years. He wondered when Mama had decided to move it and whether it would come back out when the tree came down.

Lydia beckoned him over to where she stood, snapping pictures from just inside the doorway. He leaned against the frame and watched over her shoulder as she zoomed out, trying to fit all the cousins into a single shot.

“How's tricks, little brother?” she asked, nearly drowned out by the ferocious bidding war that had broken out over Marvin Gardens. “Find a handsome doctor to settle down with yet?”

“The way I hear it, I should be asking you that,” he said, glad to be able to deflect without having to specify that a doctor was not who he was looking for or bear up under her teasing for details of what he did want.

“He's a vet. I think it counts.”

“Do we get to meet Dr. Doolittle, then?”

“Not if you're going to call him that!” she protested. Her baleful gaze would have been more successful if she could have stopped smiling beneath it.

“Look where Uncle Roman's standing!” Leah said, suddenly raising her voice to be heard over the adults and the chatter of the game, which caused all of her siblings and cousins to raise a sing-song chorus of _oooooh_ s, and point to a spot above his head.

He tilted his head up to find a bundle of greenery and ribbon and tinsel suspended from the ceiling above him: Mistletoe.

“You know what that means!”

“They've been a little obsessed with the mistletoe all day,” Lydia said, with a shrug. “I don't think the sugar's helping make them less silly.”

She smiled at him as the kids all started talking over each other: _Who're you gonna kiss? Aunt Lydia's the closest. It can't be Mom! She's his sister; that's gross! Kissing's gross anyway! It's a tradition! So what? Let's play the game; whose turn is it?_

He liked kids in general, and especially the ones that belonged to his sisters, but he didn't spend all that much time with them, and he was starting to feel seriously outnumbered. He was still weighing his options – cave and kiss his sister hello again? wait and let the kids get bored of him? launch into Very Serious Medical Advice about the spread of cooties? – when Dean stepped into his space. He tipped Roman's face toward him with a hand on his cheek, fingers warm from his cocoa mug, and dropped a quick peck on his lips. There and gone, except for the faintest trace of chocolate, before Roman could even register his surprise.

“What?” he asked innocently. “Traditions gotta be kept, right?”

Lydia's camera flashed belatedly, and the kids burst into scandalized giggles.

“Leave your uncles alone,” Autumn commanded. “Back to Monopoly. Somebody roll the dice.”

If Dean had heard Autumn formally adopting him – or, possibly, marrying the two of them off – he didn't give any sign. Instead, he just wrapped both hands back around his mug and raised it to hide his smirk behind the rim, checking Roman's shoulder with his own as he turned to stand beside him, still beneath the mistletoe.

 

* * *

 

“You sleep good, Baby?” Mama asked, nodding at his silent offer to top up her coffee cup.

“How could I not?” he asked, sinking onto the stool opposite where she sat with the crossword puzzle half-completed in front of her. “I'm in my own old room.”

She laughed softly: before they'd all turned in, Autumn had been jokingly grousing about being evicted from her teenage bedroom in order to let June be that many yards closer to the bathroom.

Even packed to the rafters, the house was quiet just now, while he nursed his coffee and she inked SISYPHUS into the crossword grid in neat strokes. He'd stepped back into yesterday's jeans before he came downstairs, but Mama was crisp, in slacks and a sweater and a flowing scarf, hair pinned back neatly, like she might be stepping out to teach any minute. Though, of course, she hadn't been in front of a classroom since last summer.

“How've you been doing, Mama?”

She paused a moment, putting down her pen, and he could see her weighing her options, deciding whether to answer him as her kid – the _baby_ , even – or as another adult. “Better some days than others,” she admitted, and reached over the countertop to take his hand. “It's good to have a full house again. Gets quiet without Joe sometimes.”

He winced. “I'm sorry I haven't made it back more. Should've been here for Turkey Day.”

Her fingers laced through his own, thumb stroking gently over the inside of his wrist. “Life happens. The important thing is, you're here now.”

“Still,” he said, pausing to swallow another sip of coffee down a throat gone thick, “I should've come up to do the Christmas lights. Should've come more often while he was still here.”

“Oh, baby, we all thought we had more time. Can't dwell on what we missed.” Her hand tightened fiercely around his own. “We just have to hold on to each other now.”

 

* * *

 

Pop's study was a little different than he remembered: no files scattered over the desktop, his worn-in recliner relocated from its spot in the living room to occupy the area rug in the space between the desk itself and Pop's shorter bookcase, the one lined with Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. The bourbon bottle, tucked into the space between plaques and awards from the local bar association and Pop's alumni groups and other clubs and societies, had been replaced. He knew because he'd been the one to empty the bottle Pop had been working on: tipping the last burning sip down his throat, one of the few clear memories he had of the night after the funeral, lost in a sea of jangly music and gruff dialogue from Pop's favorite western, Dean's steady warmth and the unexpected softness of his lips and of the skin above his waist.

He shook his head, his face heating a little with the scraps of memory and the embarrassment of not knowing what exactly had happened – or even what he might have wanted to happen – and went to work on what he'd actually come in for.

Though smothered beneath a thick layer of heavy garment bags and organizers full of shoes and ties and other clothes and accessories that had migrated into the office closet from their nooks in the rest of the house, the Christmas lights were stashed where he'd expected, the individual strands coiled tightly and packed into a red and green plastic tote tucked into the corner. Mama had said not to worry about the lights, but it was sitting heavy on him, seeing the trees out front all spindly and bare and remembering how Pop had relished the Friday after Thanksgiving: winding and draping and fastening lights to every available surface of the house, grinning even as the effort left him huffing and puffing.

He could admit to himself now that the thought of hanging lights without Pop's direction was part of what had kept him away last month. He was here now, though, and he had shit to do.

 

* * *

 

He'd promised Mama not to do anything with the roof, especially now that it had started to snow in steady little flakes that were melting as soon as they landed, leaving everything cold and wet. Including Roman, as he strung lights through the pair of young maples Pop had put in a couple years back to replace the older trees the electric company had cut down throughout the neighborhood and wound other strands around the posts and railings of the front porch.

Still, the damp that tried to creep down his collar was an almost-welcome distraction from the quiet and the empty spaces that would've been filled by Pop's reminders to distribute the bulbs evenly and trash-talk about whatever football game they'd have watched with their leftovers.

He fiddled with the timer and took in his work. The full effect would have to wait for after dark, and Pop would definitely have done more, but he felt lighter for having done it.

Inside, he hung his wet coat on a hook and kicked his boots off, and followed the sound of warm laughter and the sweet smell of baking into the kitchen. Mama was standing in front of the oven, shaking her head mock-sternly at something Dean had said, while he stood at the counter, aiming a crooked grin at her, pastry-bag poised purposefully over the tray in front of him.

“You get everything put together, Baby?” Mama asked as he padded further into the room.

"Yeah. It's not as big as Pop would've gone, but I think it's gonna look good."

“Shoulda got my ass out of bed. I'd'a helped,” Dean said. Roman had left him to sleep in this morning, buried under a thick drift of blankets, one loose fist and a mop of sandy curls peeking out from beneath the edge of the comforter.

“I know you would, but I got it handled. Besides,” he said, rounding the end of the bar to claim a stool and take a closer look at Dean's handiwork, “looks like you got your hands full here.”

The tray was loaded with gingerbread men, only a handful of the dozens and dozens Mama made every year for the faculty lounge and Pop's office and her grad students and on and on. If this year was like any of the ones Roman remembered, she would have been making them for weeks by now, long since tired of decorating them herself, and now having bored even the house full of grandchildren. Dean, stationed at the counter with a cool batch while Mama pulled a fresh tray hot and fragrant out of the oven, leaned back over his work and piped white frosting into careful, thick layers over the end of each stubby arm.

Roman squinted and laughed. "Is that... wrist-tape?"

"Well, yeah," Dean said, the unspoken _obviously_ loud and clear in his tone. "You want 'em to bust up their gingerbread knuckles?"

"Of course not. Don't know what was I thinking."

"'S'what you keep me around for," Dean said, pausing to swap out the tip on the pastry bag, balancing the unused icing carefully while he screwed the nozzle into place.

The doorbell rang, and Roman started to rise, but Mama waved him off and went to investigate it herself. He settled back and watched as Dean shaped a gaudy buttercream championship belt around each gingerbread waist.

"You been moonlighting at a bakery?" he asked. "I did my time on the assembly line as a kid too, but I don't remember any of this." He held out his hand, and Dean obligingly squeezed a line of frosting onto his outstretched finger. He raised it to his mouth for a taste, smooth and rich and sweet on his tongue.

"You ain't seen nothin' yet." Dean smirked, pressing a foil-wrapped chocolate coin into the center of each sugary title belt. "Just wait 'til I start putting white stockings on all the gingerbread nurses."

He laughed. Dean's first response to his plans for nursing school had been to crack wise about how all those years of football drills had given him great calves for the uniform stockings, and the joke had kept running between them over all the years since. "You keep bringing up sexy uniforms, and I'm gonna start thinking you've got some kind of fixation."

"Who ever said I don't?" Dean asked, and pointedly dragged a lingering gaze up the length of his leg from where his toes grazed the kitchen tile to his hip propped on the barstool. His smile was challenging when his eyes finally lifted to his face, and Roman chuckled and slipped his finger into his mouth to suck away the remaining frosting, a little lick of heat curling in his belly at the way Dean's eyes tracked the motion, zeroing in on his lips.

It occurred to him how easy it would be – and how much he wanted – to close the little distance between them, to press his palms to the countertop and frame Dean's body with his own, to kiss him long and slow. He pushed to his feet at the same time that Dean took a step in toward him – he had a sudden flash of the possibility of Dean, leaning into the space between his knees, bracing his hands on his shoulders or maybe his thighs, dipping in for a kiss – and the movement threw them both just off-balance. They laughed, and he curved a hand against Dean's hip to steady them both.

“I'm glad you're here.” Mama's voice carried in from the entryway. “I have cookies for you.”

“Wouldn't be Christmas, otherwise.”

At the new voice, Dean quirked a smile at him, a silent _maybe later_ , and drew back a step.

Mama came back into the kitchen, followed closely by Seth Rollins, the younger lawyer in Pop's office, his arms laden with boxes. The bleached patch in his hair that Pop had always joked about had grown out another couple of inches since Roman had last seen him, at the funeral.

“Seth brought some packages that came to the office.”

“Near as I can tell, they're gifts Joe ordered early, just now coming in,” he said, nodding his thanks as Roman rose to take the boxes off of his hands. They all smiled, a little sadly. Pop was a planner; it wasn't hard to imagine him sitting down in July trying to come up with ways to make them all happy in December.

“I've got some more Christmas cards, too,” Seth said, reaching into his satchel to present Mama with a stack of colorful envelopes.

“Thank you,” Mama said, taking Seth's hand for a moment along with the cards.

“Merry Christmas, man. How you been?” he said.

“Keeping pretty busy trying to wrap up Joe's caseload. I don't know how he did it.” Seth shook his head.

“He had good help.”

Seth smiled sadly and stepped into the hug Roman offered, clapping him on the back and letting Roman draw him further into the sweet-smelling kitchen.

“Ambrose,” he said, spotting Dean and leaning across the counter to offer a hand. “Hey; good to see you. This will sound weird, but I was actually going to try to get your contact info from Alice while I was here.”

“I dunno, I'm a pretty famous guy,” Dean deadpanned, shaking Seth's hand. “Maybe I don't want that to get around.”

“Sure.” Seth laughed. “There's something in Joe's files I'd like to review with you, though. Think you could drop by the office tomorrow?”

“Try to pencil you in to my busy schedule of, you know, icing cookies and eating.” Dean was smiling, but it didn't reach his eyes.

“Speaking of eating,” Mama said, “you're sure you won't come to dinner, Seth?”

Seth begged off, and while he talked about his holiday plans and Mama loaded him back down with cookies, Roman rounded the end of the counter to loop an arm around the stiff line of Dean's shoulders.

“Good?”

Dean gave him a half-smile and a leaned into him for a beat before he busied his hands with the pastry-bag again.

 

* * *

 

“This looks good, Baby.” Mama leaned in to wrap her arms around his middle and swept her gaze back along the front of the house, over the red-and-white-decked trees and the bright lines of the porch in the dark. “Thank you.”

“It's not the same,” he said, making room for her to tuck in against his side.

“No,” she agreed, resting her head on his chest, “but it's going to be okay. Just like the rest of us.”

He leaned down to press a kiss onto the silky scarf that covered her hair, and they watched quietly as Lydia and Nathan and Autumn herded the kids, all of them bundled up and spilling over with laughter, out of the house and into a pair of minivans.

“Sure you don't want to come with us?”

“Pretty sure the popcorn's gonna be better here.”

She laughed and they started back down the drive toward Lydia's van, set to whisk Mama and all her grandkids and some of the grown folks out to a movie while the stragglers hibernated in front of a replay of _Die Hard_. “Probably,” she admitted, as he opened the car door for her. “Company's a tie though.”

 

* * *

 

The stovetop popcorn was gone, Mike and Dean were playing a low-stakes game of poker across the coffee table, and John McClane was plucking shards of glass from his feet on the TV when Nikki texted him the first picture: herself in a sequined Santa hat, Oscar's orange bulk propped against her chest, his yellow eyes baleful under the stuffed antlers fastened to his head. Then a selfie with Felix, a cat-sized ugly Christmas sweater fitted over his tuxedoed fur. _your furkids love their Xmas presents!_

“She's pretty,” June said innocently, leaning over to peek at his screen.

“She's beautiful,” he agreed. “She's also just about engaged.”

Dean snickered and dealt Mike another card.

"Only 'just about'? So, you're saying you've still got time?" June prodded, winking.

"Maybe you could do with a check-up? What I say and what you hear are pretty different," he said mildly, but let her take his phone from his hand.

"I'm pretty sure that's just how her ears work," Mike offered, pushing a few more M&Ms into the pot. He didn't look up from his cards, but he was grinning.

"Just remember that eventually we're going to go home, and you're going to be the only one there for me to pick on. At least for a little while longer," she said, resting Roman's phone on her belly and scrolling through his pictures: More of the cats, trying to shrug out of their outfits and rubbing against Nikki's boots – all indignities forgotten – when she dished up their supper. The nurses' lounge at work, done up in balloons and crepe paper for a birthday party. Shots from the 5K the clinic sponsored, lots of former patients happily using their repaired and healed bodies. Dean in the ring, hands spread wide in challenge, scuffed-up chin raised defiantly at an opponent just out of frame. Another show, catching his breath at the feet of the crowd, lips parted, head thrown back, hair matted with sweat and the blood that had run in a rivulet down his face to dribble onto his chest and smear over his bare thighs, thrown open wide on the unforgiving concrete.

"Not quite so pretty," she remarked softly, nudging a friendly elbow into his ribs and looking from the screen down to where Dean sat on the carpet, with his legs pretzeled into an impossible position and a dimple prominent in his cheek as he fast-talked Mike (“Sure you don't want to fold? Lot of people have lost a lot of money betting against me.”). "But there's something there, huh?"

He didn't answer, except to swipe his phone back from her, mostly because it seemed like he didn't have to. Her tricky big-sister ears had already heard everything he hadn't said on the subject of Dean.

 

* * *

 

“You're squirmier than usual. You good?”

Dean shifted again, sheets rustling around him in the darkened room. “Sorry. Yeah.”

“Don't gotta be sorry,” he said, turning to face him, though Dean wasn't much more than a shadow against the faint streetlight spilling under the curtain. “Anything I can do?”

“Nah. Just antsy about whatever Rollins wants to meet about.” He sighed and Roman tracked the motion of his punching the pillow into a new shape. “I mean, it's gotta be about my mom, and when has that ever been good news?”

Roman stretched out beneath the sheet and closed his fingers around Dean's forearm when he found it. “You want some company? You know I got your back.”

Dean was quiet for a moment, his free hand landing over top of Roman's own. “Thanks. I got it. I'm a big boy.” He laughed humorlessly and ran his thumb over Roman's knuckles. “You can buy me a beer after, though. Figure I'm gonna need it.”

“Never know,” he said, “maybe you got a long-lost rich uncle, left you his fortune?”

“If that's it, then the drinks are on me.” Dean's laugh was lighter this time, and Roman smiled into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

It was still dark when he stirred – a peek at the clock told him it was a little after two – but he was unsurprised to find the other part of the bed empty. He stretched out a hand to find the sheets cool under his palm. Whatever Dean was doing, he'd been up and at it for a little bit at least.

He turned over in his nest of blankets, feeling warm and lazy, but too unsettled to roll over and go back to sleep, thinking about Dean jittery and alone somewhere in the house. After another minute or two without Dean's return, he pushed himself up from the mattress and onto his feet, snagged a hoodie from the back of the desk chair, and padded groggily into the hallway, zipping the sweatshirt as he went. The bathroom was dark, door hanging open, and he moved on, down the stairs, avoiding the one that still creaked.

Downstairs was dark, too, except for the kitchen nightlight stationed next to the coffeemaker and the candy-colored glow of the lights on the tree. He found Dean in the kitchen, leaning against the counter in front of a half-full glass of milk and a napkin containing the severed limbs of a gingerbread man.

“Fuck,” he said quietly when he caught sight of Roman. “I wake you up?”

“Nah.”

Dean rolled his eyes, plainly not believing him, but not calling him on it either. “Couldn't sleep anyway, and these guys were callin' my name.”

“Yeah? You hear voices a lot?”

Dean raised an eloquent middle finger and shoved a stubby gingerbread leg into his mouth.

Roman smiled and took a few steps over to look at the tree. It was trimmed up nice, and there were a bunch of neatly wrapped packages underneath, though not nearly as many as there would be come opening-time. It looked like the girls hadn't finished their wrapping, yet. He hadn't even finished his shopping. He could almost hear Pop's booming laughter, mocking their procrastination.

“I know you said you don't need anybody to go with you,” he started, “but at least let me give you a lift? I gotta go out anyway. Pick up another present or two. Run some errands for Mama.” He glanced over to where Dean had sidled up next to him and smiled. “She put dates and extra coconut on the grocery list. Must've heard somebody was craving macaroons.”

Dean smiled, soft and a little uncertain. The same expression that had made 14 year old Roman want to punch every bigger kid who messed with Dean square in the mouth now left him wanting to pull him into his arms and hold on until he knew he belonged there.

“You didn't need to tell her that,” Dean said eventually. “Just like you don't need to cart me around tomorrow.”

“Not any more than you needed to drive all the way up from Tampa, or to be here to keep my ass in line instead of all the other shit you could be doing for yourself this week.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest, and Roman watched his answer – probably something like _that's what you do for your family_ – die on his lips to be replaced with a sheepish grin.

“That's what I thought.”

Dean scoffed. “Asshole.”

“Love you, too, Babe.”

Dean snickered at that, but let it stand, drifting over to lean against the doorframe while they stood quietly again, watching the lights on the tree blink in time.

After a long moment, Dean gave a soft laugh. “Aw, man,” he said, tipping his chin up toward the ceiling. “Look where I'm standing.”

Roman followed the angle of his gaze, right on up to the mistletoe, the glitter on its ribbon trimmings sparkling against the tree lights. His lips tipped into a smile and his heart kicked in his chest. “Guess I'm supposed to do something about that?” he said, trying for teasing, but knowing he sounded at least as eager as he felt.

“From what I hear, it _is_ tradition.” Dean gave a languid little shrug, still leaning against the flat surface of the doorway, and Roman watched the muscles of his shoulders shift and move under the thin straps of his tank top.

“Yeah, and I know what a traditional guy you've always been,” he said, and took a couple of steps forward to close the space between them, not touching yet, but close enough to make contact if either of them just reached out.

Dean laughed again, drawing out the dimples in his scruffy cheeks. “Well, there's a first time for everything.”

Roman leaned in and brushed his lips over one of those dimples, curving one hand against Dean's ribs – warm through thin cotton and expanding with his sudden in-drawn breath. He only had to wait a for the space of a couple of heartbeats before Dean tilted his head to chase his mouth. Warm, slightly-chapped lips teased at his own lower lip, and Dean's hands curled loosely into the front of his hoodie, pulling him that little bit closer.

He parted his lips, opening himself up for a deeper kiss and swallowing the breathy noise Dean made when he leaned forward to press him back tighter against the doorframe. He lifted his free hand to cup Dean's face, fingers threading into the curls at his temple. Dean kissed him back, hard and thorough, sugar and spice lingering on his tongue. Roman let his hand stroke down Dean's side, over the solid cage of his ribs, against the definition of his tapered waist, to anchor at his hip. While his own fingers edged up beneath the hem of Dean's tank top, seeking skin, he felt the zipper of his hoodie inching down, Dean's fingertips trailing down his chest in its wake.

He smiled against Dean's lips and tilted his head away to mouth along the line of his jaw, every one of his boy's quick, heavy breaths settling sweet in his chest.

Dean tipped his head, offering more of his throat, and his hands slid inside the open hoodie to trace lines of heat up Roman's back. The pressure of Dean's broad palms on his skin urged him in closer, even though he was practically pinning Dean to the doorframe as it was. He combed through Dean's hair to cradle the back of his head, insulating him from a crack against the surface behind him and steering him into another kiss, smothering the low, hungry sound he made when Roman pressed a knee between his thighs.

And then a startled voice from the kitchen: “I – wow, sorry!” Mike, sheepishly brandishing a water glass. “Sorry, guys,” he repeated, quieter this time. “Didn't realize anybody was in here.”

Dean started to laugh, shoulders shaking uncontrollably as he tipped forward against Roman, hands sliding out from beneath his sweatshirt, breath hot on his skin where he chuckled into the crook of his neck. “Busted!” he recovered enough to say.

“Just getting some water for June, and then I'll be out of your way,” Mike said, crossing over to the faucet to run the water cold. “Don't worry. Your sister won't hear anything about this from me.”

“Thanks, man.” His face was flushed, the heat equal parts embarrassment at the interruption and the rush of Dean's body on his own. He took a step back, bringing Dean with him, away from the doorway.

Mike filled the glass and turned the tap back off. “You're their baby, but you're an adult, right? Besides: mistletoe.” He gave a _whaddya gonna do_ shrug and made for the stairs.

Dean chuckled again and craned up to press a kiss to his temple. “Mistletoe,” he echoed.

 

* * *

 

If Roman was terrible at planning or shopping or just not putting things off until the last moment possible, then at least he wasn't alone. Here was a whole shopping mall full of suckers just like him.

He let the bustle of the crowd carry him through the concourse, tacking away from the line that snaked past Santa's Village, and drifting toward the soft pretzel stand tucked into the alcove between the Gap and the arcade.

He'd figured that Dean would wrap up with Seth while he did the grocery run, and they might grab a late lunch before hitting the mall to cross the last few gifts off of his list, but that time had come and gone without a call from Dean or an answer to his own texts.

As he waited for the harried kid behind the counter to produce his hot pretzel, he pulled his phone out to check whether he'd missed anything coming in while he'd been in the bookstore or the Carter's or at the perfume counter. Nothing but his own last _still tied up?_ in their chain of texts.

It was probably dumb, and he was sure it was selfish; Dean needed to see how many people he had to lean on more than he needed Roman making cow eyes at him - but he'd been looking forward to having Dean more or less to himself today. Mike's appearance last night had sort of broken the spell, and they'd gone back up to bed and just slept, but morning had found Dean tucked warm into his side. He'd caught himself thinking again how good it felt – even with Dean's hair tickling against his shoulder, his knee digging a little into his thigh – and how much he'd like to keep him there.

His order finally came, and he tore into it, chewy and buttery and salty, as he drifted back through the mall, riding another wave of people back toward the entrance nearest his parking spot. He wondered as he wove through the currents of the crowd, whether he might be misreading his boy: making him feel antsy or smothered or like he wanted more than Dean was ready to give. Making him withdraw and ignore his phone.

The thought soured his stomach around the pretzel for a moment, until he reminded himself of Dean's hands last night, warm and a little rough, skimming up his back, anchoring him close: the opposite of shrinking away from him.

He tucked his bags into the back next to the groceries and closed himself up in the cab to get out of the chilly wind that had kicked up. The grey sky made it look like he might end up following through on making that snow-angel for Nikki after all. He tapped out a _headed your way_ and pointed himself back toward Pop's office.

 

* * *

 

The office hadn't changed much: Pop's name even still stenciled above Seth's on the glass pane of the door, the same landscapes of Rainmaker Mountain hung on the walls and array of magazines fanned across the low table in the lobby. The reception desk was empty, Pop's long-time assistant Mae probably cooking with her own family today, and he paced a little as he waited.

He hadn't been here since the last time he'd dropped in to take Pop out for lunch, some time last summer, and it was harder than he'd expected, being back where Pop had spent so much of his time. Still, he figured he could suck it up if Dean needed him here. Knew he could do it if Dean was here with him.

After a minute, he heard footsteps coming from the back offices and Seth emerged into the reception space with a questioning look.

“Hey, man,” he asked, “what's up?”

“Here to snag Dean if you're done with him.”

Seth's curiosity turned to confusion, and Roman felt his stomach drop. “We actually wrapped up hours ago. He didn't hang around long. I sort of thought you'd already come and gone.” Seth grimaced. “You know I can't really disclose any of the details, but it was pretty heavy news.”

Roman nodded his acknowledgment, phone already pressed to his ear and ringing. After the sixth, the voicemail greeting picked up – the robot message Dean had either never bothered or never learned how to replace with his own voice.

He hung up without leaving a message and called again while Seth watched with a sympathetic frown. He was getting ready to repeat the process for a third time when his phone chimed with a text.

_im ok_

_im at moms_

He breathed a sigh of relief at the screen and started moving.

“Let me know if there's anything I can do,” Seth called after him.

“Will do. Thanks, man.” Roman hoped he sounded sincere, even with one foot out the door and his heart already halfway across town.

 

* * *

 

He parked along the narrow lane that snaked through this section of the cemetery, picking out a solitary figure among the sober stones. He stuffed Dean's hat into his own coat pocket and wound his way through the markers toward his boy's hunched shape. As Roman moved closer, he could make out a cigarette in his left hand, a cloud of mist probably equal parts smoke and breath swirling away from him in the chilly breeze.

“You walk all this way?” he asked when he drew even with Dean in front of the stone engraved with LeeAnn Ambrose, December 9, 1967 – June 15, 2009.

Dean shrugged, not looking up at him, and took a deep drag from his cigarette. “Wanted the air.”

“Just sayin', it's pretty cold air today.”

Dean scoffed, “You been in Florida too long, getting' soft. It ain't that cold.” He looked up then, face pinched and eyes red, and Roman was hit in the gut with the memory of the last time he'd stood here with Dean: both of them in uncomfortable suits, Dean strung tight enough to vibrate.

“Ain't that warm, either,” he finally said, and reached up to jam the knit hat down onto Dean's head. Dean rolled tired eyes at him but didn't pull away when he tucked the bangs flattened onto his forehead back under the edge of the hat. His skin was cool under his fingers. “What's going on?”

“Rollins tell you anything?”

“Just that it might've been hard news to hear.”

Dean laughed humorlessly at that. He took another long drag from the cigarette, and Roman noticed that his fingers shook around the filter. “In '01, Joe worked on a case for her.” He inclined his head toward the stone to indicate LeeAnn.

Roman nodded, not quite following; even after he'd left the Public Defender's office, Pop had worked on a few cases for Dean's mom, mostly low-level drug-related charges from what he'd understood at the time. One solicitation bust that had led to both of them spending a week on in-school suspension after some smarmy junior had brought it up in the middle of the cafeteria.

Dean bent to stub the dead end of his cigarette out on the cold ground, carefully tucked the spent butt back into the half-empty pack, and pulled out and lit a fresh one, before he continued, only a little above a whisper. “It was an adoption.”

He felt his jaw actually drop open, and Dean laughed again, thin and mirthless. “And here I've been telling people I'm one-of-a-kind. Gonna have to rewrite some promos.” He drew on the cigarette again, and let a thin stream of smoke escape through his lips. “The family's looking for relatives–” He stopped, and shook his head, “Biological relatives,” he continued, sounding lost. He pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and held it out.

Roman took the paper, unfolding it with one hand and settled the other on Dean's shoulder, tense under the the cool leather of his coat.

“Guess the kid – I don't... doesn't say if it's a boy or a girl – has some kinda bone marrow disease. Looking for a donor match.”

The paper, folded for mailing and rumpled from Dean's unsteady grip, turned out to be a letter, on the letterhead of a private investigator and addressed to Pop. Roman read down the page, finding a more detailed rendition of what Dean had just summarized for him, and shifted his hand up to curve around the back of his neck. Dean fell quiet next to him, puffing away at his cigarette, shifting on his feet continually but never dramatically enough to dislodge his grip.

He refolded the letter and offered it back to Dean. “How you doing with all that?” he asked.

Dean gusted out a heavy sigh and shrugged under his hand again and focused on secreting the letter back into the pocket of his coat for another quiet moment. He scrubbed a hand down his face and turned his eyes back to his mom's stone. “I been sittin' here, just doin' the math,” he said finally, voice hoarse from cold or emotion. “It has to be from when she was in that joint in Toledo.”

That little bit of time that Dean had lived with them. The numbers worked.

“Like, she wasn't in rehab. She was off having this kid in secret?” Dean continued. “Or, I guess it was probably, like, both. Staying clean long enough to have the baby, probably.”

“Could be,” Roman said quietly, unsure what he had to offer right now besides his presence, an opportunity for Dean to talk himself through things without actually talking to himself.

“Guess it's good to know _somebody_ was worth the effort,” he said bitterly.

Roman gave his neck a squeeze, and Dean looked over with a brittle smile before he stooped to rub out the stub of his cigarette and repeated the process of digging out the pack and trading the butt for a fresh smoke.

“Sorry,” he rasped, toward the headstone. “I know you were trying.”

The ache that put in Roman's chest brought him into a crouch at Dean's side, one arm looping around his shoulders. Dean sighed and curved into him, face pressing into his chest as he sucked in a series of shaky breaths.

The breeze kicked up, cold and sharp, slicing through his own layers and making his knee throb. He felt a shiver roll through Dean, and remembered that he'd been out in the weather for who knew how long.

“Let's get in the car. Warm up,” he said, squeezing Dean tight for a beat, free hand coming up to cradle his head.

Dean hummed something that sounded like agreement and allowed himself to be hauled back to his feet. He popped the cigarette between his lips and sheltered his lighter behind a cupped palm until the ember caught.

“Thought you quit,” he observed, and let his palm rest between Dean's shoulder blades to steer him back toward the car.

Dean shrugged. “Did. Making up for lost time, I guess.” He blew out another cloud of smoke and slanted a sheepish look at him. “Told myself I was just gonna finish this pack. Let ya kick my ass if I go buy another.”

“It's a deal,” he said, figuring they both knew hurting Dean was a promise he was bound to break.

 

* * *

 

“You got shit to do still?” Dean asked, flexing his fingers in the flow of warm air from the heater.

Roman cranked the temperature up and aimed the vents on his side of the dash to point toward where his boy was curled sideways in the passenger seat. “Just whatever you need to do.”

“Don't gotta babysit me,” Dean grumbled. “Not gonna do anything stupid.”

“It ain't like that,” he said, catching Dean's look of disbelief. “Wanted to spend some more time with you – just because – before all this started. I still want that, and now I want to be here for you too.”

“You're such a sap,” Dean said. Then, more quietly, “Thanks.”

He smiled softly, and let his hand drop onto Dean's knee. “Actually, I'm kind of a liar, too,” he admitted. “Probably ought to get the groceries over to Mama, but I didn't know if you'd be ready to be back in the middle of everybody yet. I mean, they all love you–”

“Suckers.” Dean smirked, a dimple taking shape in his cheek.

“But I know we can be a lot to take.”

Dean covered his hand with cool fingers. “You're a lot, all right. Let's go get that beer you owe me.”

 

* * *

 

Dean hadn't eaten since breakfast, so they ended up tucked into a booth at a quiet dive a few blocks from campus, the remnants of burgers and cheese fries and onion rings and a pitcher of draft spread across the table between them. In the end, Roman had cashed in on Seth's offer for 'anything I can do' to have him come and snag the groceries and take them back to Mama with an explanation.

Dean took a long swallow of beer. “I just keep thinking,” he started.

“Dangerous,” Roman said over the rim of his own glass.

Dean scoffed. “You don't know the half of it.”

“Maybe not,” he offered, “but you can tell me.”

Dean raised his glass in acknowledgment. “Been thinking; Mom and Joe kept quiet for so long. Like, actually took it to the grave–” He stopped, wincing. “Sorry.”

“They both went quick,” he said, swallowing past a sudden lump in his throat. “Maybe they would have said something if they hadn't run out of time.”

“Yeah. That's fair, I guess.” Dean paused, started nibbling on a cold fry. “I just keep getting hung up, wondering what else nobody ever told me. Like, I'd probably never have known if this kid didn't have the shitty luck to get sick.” He held up the pitcher, and after Roman shook his head, emptied it into his own glass. “I mean, I guess it worked out. They obviously wound up with people who give a shit.” He gestured at the folded square of the letter, lined up along the edge of the table, where his nervous hands had discarded it when the food came. “But what if they've been going around, thinking nobody wanted them?” He took a long drink. “And, just, it might have been good to know. Not to be alone with it, you know?”

“You're not alone,” Roman protested. “Never gonna be as long as I have anything to do with it.”

Dean winced again. “Shit. I didn't mean it like that.”

“I know you don't,” he said, knocking his foot against Dean's under the table. “Just don't want you to forget it either.”

The kick that connected with his shin was not quite as soft as either the look on Dean's face or his voice when he slouched back into the booth and said, “Better stick around and remind me, then.”

“That's the general idea,” he said. “Where we headed?”

Dean shimmied his shoulders against the seatback and looked thoughtful. “You still keep gym stuff in your car? Need to move, I think.”

 

* * *

 

The gym had spruced up some from the way Roman remembered it, back when Dean was spending as much time here as at school or home: fresh paint, a couple ranks of cardio machines at one end of the main room. The rest of the space taken up with an array of free-weights, punching bags and dummies arranged around the perimeter, three rings and a large area of mats taking up both the center of the room's real estate and the center of its attention.

The holiday crowd was thin: a quick, lithe kid dancing around an older guy in one of the rings, jabbing his red gloves into padded mitts; a woman with looping vines of ivy tattooed up her bare arms, running flat-out at one of the treadmills; a pair of wiry boys who had returned to one of the weight benches after working up the nerve to chat with _holy shit! that's Jon Moxley;_ Dean himself, laying into one of the heavy bags with abandon. Roman kept an eye on him while he went through his own familiar series of cool-down stretches.

Sweat plastered his bangs to his forehead and darkened the layer of hair on his bare chest, but he looked weirdly at peace as he worked the bag with a flurry of hard rights, the tension draining from his face, movements that looked like twitches and tics everywhere else somehow translating to graceful footwork in his pretend fight.

Gradually, he slowed and dropped his fists and began to prowl along the margin of the room, bouncing on the balls of his feet and raking damp hair back from his eyes.

"That was good," Dean said, when his circuit of the gym brought him back to Roman's side. He rolled out his shoulders and threw a couple of loose jabs into the empty air. "I really needed to punch something." He grinned ferociously and accepted the water bottle Roman offered him.

He smiled. "Was a time you'd have stayed at the bar and picked a nasty fight there."

"And you woulda waded in after me." Dean leaned over to check his shoulder. "Guess we're mellowing out in our old age."

He laughed. “Sure. Let's hit the showers, old man.”

 

* * *

 

"Lemme bum some soap," Dean said, holding out his palm. "Or ambrosia or whatever witches' brew you're using these days."

He pressed a bottle of shampoo into Dean's hand and rolled his eyes, partly at Dean's familiar teasing about his hair, and partly at himself and the little jolt he got from their hands brushing around the container. He let himself cut a glance over to Dean through the shower's steam, cataloging the changes in him since he'd last seen him this exposed: bruises of about the same vintage as his eye painted in faint yellows and greens over his skin; scars he remembered in angry reds faded to silver by time; muscle defined in sharper ridges, shifting under his skin along the planes of his back as he scrubbed a fine lather through his hair.

Before he could either shift his eyes away or let his gaze drift lower, Dean turned partway back to him, mouth quirking up into a _caught ya looking_ smirk, before he dropped his eyes to make his own frank appraisal. Roman wondered what he saw. The new ink, obviously. Probably how he'd leaned out some since his playing days: working hard, at first, to avoid inheriting Pop's belly, now, to keep from taking after his bad heart. Maybe that his head was full of the image of Dean's mouth on his own and of bare skin, hot and slick, under his hands.

The moment stretched out between them, tense but not uncomfortable, and Dean stepped into his space, hands framing his face and tipping it back beneath the shower's spray to rinse clean. He closed his eyes and went with the light pressure, Dean's fingers combing back through the hair at his temples to squeeze the excess water from it in a warm stream down his back and work into the strands at the base of his neck until his hand cupped the back of Roman's head.

His own hands settled at Dean's waist, thumbs drawn toward the sharp notch of muscle and bone at each of his hips, the rest of him narrowly resisting the urge to haul Dean tight against him. And then, Dean's hand was tilting his face back down, guiding him into a kiss, with no mistletoe to blame this time. Dean's lips were soft against his own, and so tentative that it made Roman's chest ache; if there was one place in the world where Dean should be sure of his welcome, it was here, with him.

He did drag Dean closer then, a press of skin all down his front, and breathed in a gasp of surprise and satisfaction at the realization that he wasn't the only one already half-hard. Dean made a corresponding sound that he felt against his lips more than heard over the spray of the water, and Roman kissed him back, hard and sure. He let one hand shift to spread against the small of Dean's back, while the other drifted up the hollow of his spine, his fingertips grazing lightly over a network of old scars etched onto his skin. He wondered if, given time, he could trace each one back to the hurt that had left it. Probably not; he hadn't been there for all of it, and even Dean had surely lost track now, one old wound bleeding into another. Still, Roman recognized with sudden clarity how badly he wanted to try, to pour out the time on Dean, to remind them both of all the big and little ways he knew him already, and to learn the ones that were still secret.

Dean leaned into him, his fingers curling urgently into his hair, not pulling hard, but anchoring him close. He let Roman take a little of his weight and opened his mouth, breathing out a sigh and letting Roman deepen the kiss. The taste of smoke lingered faintly on Dean's tongue, but Roman didn't draw back; he wanted to take everything his boy could dish out. All the bitter and all the sweet.

Instead, it was Dean who pulled away first.

“Wait.” He let his hands slide free of Roman's hair and took one step backward, then another, opening up a space between them. He let Dean move, but kept a hand on him, skimming up over his back to rest at his shoulder.

“You good?” he asked, concern and confusion both creeping into his tone.

Dean smiled, lopsided but genuine, a dimple carving itself deep into one cheek. “Better than I was.” He covered the hand on his shoulder with his own and gave it a light squeeze, then canted his head toward the main locker room in a jerky signal of _follow me_ , and broke contact between them when he turned and stepped out of the shower.

Roman made quick work of shutting off the tap, squeezing some leave-in through his hair, and collecting his bottles from the tiled ledge before he followed, worried and uncertain and, absurdly, still a little hard. He snagged a towel and secured it around his waist as he reentered the main room.

Dean was already stepping back into his jeans, tugging them up past the curve of his bare ass and working the zipper _very_ carefully, when Roman reached the bench where he'd left his bag.

“You afraid those kids are gonna bust in and catch Jon Moxley in a compromising position?” he joked, loosening the towel and drying off hastily.

“Not hardly.” Dean snickered and lifted the towel slung around his neck up to ruffle through his hair. “I ain't exactly a role model. Besides, if they're anything like I was - which, let's hope for their sake isn't true - all they'd do is go home and rub one out." He tossed the towel toward a nearby hamper and raked damp curls back from his forehead. "And, if the poor bastards are _really_ like me, probably still switch off to thinking about their best friend before they finish."

Roman froze in the process of doing up the fly of his jeans, heat climbing into his cheeks as a surprised laugh caught in his throat. "Man, if you don't want to do this," he said, gesturing vaguely between them, "we're still gonna be fine, but you gotta take some pity on me and not just say shit like that."

Quiet fell between them for a long moment, uncomfortable in a way their silences usually weren't, and Roman turned away to pluck a t-shirt out of his bag and tug it down over his head. He pulled his hair into a loose knot against the back of his neck and crammed his dirty clothes and his dopp kit back into the gym bag.

When he finally looked back up, Dean hadn't moved and was watching him, face sober. "I never said I don't want this," Dean said softly, taking a step into the space between them. "Want you," he clarified, and closed another couple of steps' distance, dropping his eyes suddenly from Roman's face. "I was just hoping this week would go differently. Like, for once, we could try something when neither of us has just buried somebody? Fuck. I'm making this weird, huh? Sorry."

Dean's jittery steps had brought him back within arms' length, and Roman reached out to clamp a hand against his shoulder, his thumb digging gently into the hollow above his collarbone. "Don't gotta be sorry," he said, Dean's uneasiness pulling something painfully tight in his own chest. "Just say your piece. You're always clear to do that with me."

“I know. And that's, like, I don't have that with anyone else, you know?” Dean sighed, fingers coming up to tap out an uneven rhythm against his chest. “So, it matters to me that you know that this isn't just me being fucked up about this stuff with my mom.” He laughed - a jagged little sound that made Roman squeeze his shoulder tighter and take another half-step into his space - and finally looked back up, eyes bright. “I mean, I am definitely pretty fucked up about it, but I wanted this before – have for a while now – and even if there are ever three days in a row when I'm not a total goddamned wreck, I'm still gonna want it –” He broke off and circled his hand around Roman's wrist before he went on. “You.”

“Dean. Hey.” He raised his free hand to curve against his boy's face and card back through his hair, and Dean's eyes slid shut at his touch. He waited until Dean was looking back at him before he went on. "You know you don't have to tidy yourself up for me. Right?"

Dean made a soft sound, like Roman had just knocked the breath out of him. He curled his hand into a loose fist and pounded it lightly against Roman's chest. "Yeah, yeah,” he said, sarcastic. “You like me, even when I'm a mess."

"I do like you," he agreed, ignoring Dean's snicker. "All the time."

Dean's face crumpled at that, his eyes cutting away from Roman's face, and Roman pulled him in close again, looping an arm around his back and tipping Dean's head onto his shoulder, pressing a kiss into the damp curls at the crown of his head. It was an awkward grip with one of Dean's arms pinned between them, fist loosening into an open palm spread over Roman's heart, but Roman wasn't about to be the one to let go first.

 

* * *

 

After the gym, they drove. Through downtown, past storefronts lit up for Christmas and the ballpark, empty in the cold winter night. Over the Roebling and into Covington and back, aimless but easy.

They talked about a little bit of nothing, Dean futzing with the radio, singing along whenever he found something he halfway knew.

Eventually, he turned his face toward Roman, cheek pressed to the headrest, eyes bright in the streetlights. “Take me home.”

 

* * *

 

The kitchen was full of Reigns women in their pajamas when they got back to the house.

“Nice of you to join us,” Lydia said, lightly bumping his shoulder on her way toward the coffeemaker. “You want in on this? It's decaf.”

Roman shook his head, but Dean moved in to fix himself a cup.

“You two get everything sorted out?” Mama asked from her seat at the counter, wrapped up in a thick quilted robe, hands curled around her mug.

He glanced over at Dean, who was suddenly deeply absorbed in adding sugar to his cup, before he answered. “Think we did what we could,” he said with a shrug.

“That's all anyone can ask. Right?” June said, and stepped gingerly down from her stool, belly filling out a flannel nightgown that hung loose from the rest of her body. “This chick's going to bed,” she announced. “Sleeping for three.”

She made a circuit of the room, doling out and collecting hugs and goodnight kisses, even detouring into the corner to rise up on tiptoe to give Dean a peck on the cheek.

“Mama's made a surprise for _somebody_ ,” Autumn said, sliding a large plastic container across the countertop.

Lydia opened the corner of the lid and held it out toward Dean. “We couldn't wait to try them, but at least we saved you some?”

Roman watched as Dean came forward, coffee cup in one hand, the other reaching in to pluck out an irregularly-shaped toasty brown cookie.

“Macaroons?” he asked, mouth turning up into a soft smile. “Thanks, Doc. You really didn't have to go to the trouble.”

“It's only trouble if you don't enjoy them,” Mama said. “Eat up, sweetheart.”

“Actually, you mind if I take a couple upstairs? I'm kinda beat.”

“Go for it,” Lydia jumped in, grinning wickedly, “Roman's not going to throw you out of bed for eating crackers.”

“Or cookies either,” Autumn said, cheerfully joining in to gang up on him. Roman hadn't expected to miss that, but it was so _normal_ that it actually felt good, having something stay that steady even without Pop around to join in or bail him out.

“What'd you do to wear him out so bad, Romeo?” Lydia continued.

“You sure that's a story you want to hear about your kid brother?” Dean asked, leering back at her until they both laughed.

“Don't pay any attention to these two,” June said to Dean, taking the dish of cookies from Autumn in one arm and hooking the other through Dean's elbow. “Walk me upstairs.”

“Any time.” Dean chuckled and escorted her, courtly, out of the room.

Roman watched them disappear up the stairs, and when he judged that Dean would be out of earshot, asked, “Mama, can I talk to you? Alone?”

 

* * *

 

Mama sank into the depths of Pop's recliner, her robe settling in a soft drift around her. “What's on your mind, Baby?”

He propped his hip against the edge of Pop's desk and sighed. “Seth wanted Dean to come by the office so he could give him a letter. From the family that adopted LeeAnn's baby.”

Mama winced, and her knuckles went white around her coffee mug. “How's he taking it?”

“So, you did know?”

She nodded. “LeeAnn came to us for help. How's Dean?” she persisted.

“Pretty rattled.” He sighed and slid to the floor in front of the desk, resting his back on its solid surface. “He's used to thinking about being the last stick left of his family tree, you know?” He shrugged. “Plus, the kid is sick; the reason they're looking for LeeAnn's family is to try to find somebody to tap for bone marrow.”

Mama made a sad sound and took a sip from her mug. “I'm glad you were with him today. I wish he'd found out in an easier way.”

“Could've. If you'd told him, any time in the last dozen years.” He didn't mean to sound bitter or angry – he wasn't the one who'd been kept in the dark, after all – but it came out that way anyway, and Mama raised her eyebrow at him before she replied.

“It wasn't my secret to tell. Or your father's. I don't know how much you remember about LeeAnn, or how much you noticed as a kid,” she said, “but she was pretty fragile. Life wasn't very kind to her. She'd find a way back on her feet, just in time for the bottom to fall out again.”

He did remember some; when the bottom fell out for LeeAnn, it usually meant things got harder for Dean, and mostly not in any way that Roman could really help with.

“She made a lot of bad decisions, but she knew that she wasn't in any shape to take care of another child. Knew that she wasn't doing enough to take care of Dean either, and she tried to do the best thing she could to fix it.” She took another sip and went on. “It was too late to think about not having a baby, so she went to an inpatient hospital until after she'd given birth and the adoption was sorted out, and Dean came to stay with us until she got resettled.”

He chewed on that for a while. “Why keep it a secret, though?”

Mama's half-smile was tired and sad. “Oh, honey, you'd have to have asked LeeAnn. Maybe it was easier for her to get through it that way?”

He thought for a moment. “Maybe she thought it would've been hard for Dean to know?”

“Could be. She did some things wrong, but she did love him. So did your Pop.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “Makin' it hard to stay mad at him, and I really, really want to be mad at him right now.”

She smiled, sad and tired, and held her hand out to him. “Easier than missing him, huh?”

He scooted across the floor to lean his head against her knee like he would have when he was still small. “Bet I can do both.”

Her hand dropped to rub a circle into his back as he pulled out his phone to tap out a text. “Of course you can. We always knew our boy would be talented.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Roman said softly, surprised to find Dean's eyes on him in the warm light of the bedside lamp as he pulled the bedroom door shut behind him. “Figured you'd be out by now.”

“Nah.” Dean shrugged, a fold of the sheet falling away from his bare shoulder. “Thinking too hard, I guess.”

He smiled; much as Dean liked to play up being reckless, unpredictable, 'a sick guy', Roman knew he spent a lot of his time over-thinking things. Always had. “About the letter?” he asked, stepping out of his jeans and reaching into his bag for a pair of washed-soft scrub pants.

“'Bout everything,” Dean said quietly, shifting restlessly beneath the sheet. “'Bout you.”

“Yeah?” he asked, pulling the scrubs up.

“Yeah. Not so much about you putting more clothes on, though.” Dean snorted. “C'mere.”

He closed the couple of steps over to the bed and let himself go with it when Dean tugged him down onto the mattress over top of him. He braced himself up enough to keep from totally crushing Dean, but even so, they were pressed close, Dean's chest rising and falling steadily against his own, and he didn't even bother trying to resist the urge to lean down and kiss him, soft and slow.

Dean's hand skimmed up his back, fingertips tracing lines of heat over his skin and rucking up his t-shirt. When he shifted to drag it off over his head, he felt Dean, unmistakably hard through the thin layers of cotton between them.

“Like I said,” Dean murmured, watching as he tossed the shirt over the side of the bed, “thinking about you.”

“Flatterer.” Roman leaned back down and pressed another kiss to his smiling mouth. He shifted to settle his weight alongside instead of on top of Dean, and trailed a hand down his chest, pushing the edge of the sheet down in his wake, realizing as he reached the indentation at the top of his hip that he wasn't wearing anything underneath the sheet.

His own face must have given away how he felt about that, given the satisfied expression on Dean's when he turned over to face him. “You feelin' over-dressed?”

He laughed and dropped a kiss on Dean's cheek. “Maybe a little.” He sobered and drew back. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“If talking is what you _really_ want to do with me right now...” There was a pouting note in Dean's voice, but his face was lit up with mischief, brighter than Roman had seen it all day, and his fingers started idly tracing lines of ink across Roman's chest.

“What I really want would probably get too loud for a crowded house,” he said, smiling at the changing expression on Dean's face, intrigued and challenging. “Plus, we got all night to get there.”

Dean was the one to duck in for a kiss this time, and even after they broke apart, he tipped his forehead to rest against Roman's. “You know I've never been any good at waiting. And I've been doing it for a long time here.”

He threaded his fingers into Dean's hair and promised himself to make it worth his while.

“This is going to sound shitty,” he started, pulling back just enough to let him watch Dean's face, “but, the night after we buried Pop... I don't-- What did we do?”

Dean's face transformed from wary to sad and on through surprised and finally settled on gently amused. “What do you remember?”

“Lot of bourbon, and a little bit of you.”

“We didn't make it much further this, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Kinda was,” he admitted, curving his hand against Dean's rib cage. “I want to remember this for a long time.”

“Don't worry. I'm pretty unforgettable.” Dean smirked for a beat before his face softened and his fingers dropped to follow the pattern down his biceps, his touch warm and gentle on Roman's skin. “We made out like we probably shoulda done in high school, and you said a bunch of shit to me, and then passed out before we could round third.”

“What kind of shit?”

“Kind that's been making me brave.”

He wanted to say that Dean had always been the most fearless person he knew, brave and beautiful and beloved. Wanted him to know that Roman didn't need to be shitfaced to tell him, that the feelings hadn't been poured out of Pop's whiskey bottle that night but instead filled Roman up all the time.

He also wanted to kiss him breathless, and Dean made the choice for him, surging against his mouth and working his fingers into his hair, pulling it loose and messy from its bun. Dean shifted to lie on his back again, nudging Roman back into place above him.

His weight pressed Dean down into the mattress and brought a sigh up from deep in his chest to ghost over his cheek as Dean reached up to tug his hair fully free of the elastic, blunted nails scraping gently against the base of his neck and down the column of his spine.

His hair fell in a dark curtain between them, brushing against Dean's shoulders and neck and pooling onto the pillow as he tipped forward for another kiss. Dean's chest heaved and shuddered where it pressed hot and flush to his own, and a bolt of worry sliced through his belly, only to melt away with the realization that it was laughter.

“Tickles,” Dean said, tucking his face into the crook of his neck to muffle the sound of his amusement, turning the press of his mouth over Roman's pulse into a kiss, open-mouthed and eager.

He took a shaky breath and stroked a hand up Dean's side, his hips shifting to slot over Dean's, rocking against him leisurely and lingering.

“You cold?” Dean asked suddenly, lips grazing his jaw just under the line where his beard began.

He wasn't, really, not with Dean pressed so close, radiating warmth into him even at all the points where there were still a few layers separating them, but he realized then that he was shaking, hands trembling on his boy's body, a shudder rolling up his spine in the wake of Dean's light touch.

“Nah, I'm good,” he whispered, tilting his head to graze a clumsy kiss onto Dean's forehead.

“Sure you are.” Dean smirked and pulled back the edge of the sheet “Get under here and lemme warm you up anyway.”

 

* * *

 

“Good morning, Sleepyhead,” Mama called cheerfully when he finally ducked into the kitchen. “Get yourself some coffee and a sweet roll, and then I need you to peel lots of potatoes for me.”

The space was crowded with helpers and rich with the smells of tonight's dinner wafting out of the oven and the collection of pots on the stovetop. He knew Lydia's place a few minutes away must look much the same; between all of them and the cousins who might make it into town and the far-from-home students Mama always invited, there was a small mountain of food to prepare and dish up before suppertime.

“Yes, Mama. Merry Christmas.” He leaned down to drop a kiss onto her cheek on his way to the cupboard for a mug.

Coffee and pastry in hand, he wove around Autumn leaning into the oven to check on the pork roast and Nathan showing their youngest how to fork the filling into the hollowed-out whites of the deviled eggs, and ducked back out of the kitchen and into the living room. Dean was there, sitting on the floor in front of the tree, alongside Leah and Logan, pressed into service wrapping a series of nondescript cardboard boxes.

When he'd woken up to an empty bed this morning, he'd had a bleak moment, imagining his boy slinking off into the cold to be alone somewhere, right up until Dean's laughter had carried up from the kitchen in a bright, surprised burst that had settled him instantly. And now, the sight of him – at ease and at home, lower lip caught between his teeth as he focused on securing a loose fold of reindeer-patterned paper – filled him up all over again.

Like he'd felt his attention on him, Dean looked up with a soft smile that shifted into a predatory smirk – a silent _you gonna make me come over there again?_ – as he tipped his chin up toward the mistletoe still strung above Roman's head. The motion revealed the edge of an angry bruise emerging from under the collar of his t-shirt, and Roman felt himself flush over the memory of having put it there last night – the soft sound Dean had made in his throat and the way his fingers had tangled in Roman's hair – and the realization of how much ribbing his sisters were guaranteed to give him over it today. He laughed, resigned but happy, and crossed the room, bending down long enough to brush a kiss over Dean's temple and let him steal a bite of his breakfast.

June patted the empty couch cushion at her side, and he obediently went to sit with her. “I've got elves,” she said, nodding toward Dean and the kids. “Pop would've almost been proud of how early I finished shopping and making everything, but I just couldn't sit down and make myself do the wrapping. Even though it feels like I hardly do anything but sit down these days.”

“I cheated and had that kiosk at the mall wrap everything for me yesterday,” he confessed. “Can't you still see Pop, sitting in his chair, lording it over the rest of us? King of Christmas.”

She smiled and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. “It's not quite the same without him, huh? I hate that these two won't ever see that,” she added, rubbing a hand over her belly.

They were quiet together for a minute, listening to the bustle from the kitchen and watching the wrapping party.

“I dunno, man, this one's got your name on it,” Dean said solemnly to Logan. “You probably better shake it.”

Leah giggled and followed Dean's lead, egging her brother on. Roman's heart gave a little lurch as it hit him suddenly that the twins were right around the same age that Dean's little sister or brother would be.

Mike edged into the room and snapped a few pictures: June nestled against Roman's shoulder, Dean animated with the kids, the tree decked out with the growing haul of presents taking shape beneath it.

“Too bad I didn't do scarves this year,” June said after a little while, squeezing his hand and grinning wickedly as her eyes fell on Dean's neck when he stretched to reach a spool of curling ribbon that had rolled off across the floor.

“And that's my cue.” Roman groaned, hauling himself up from the couch to flee his sister's teasing and take up his shift on KP duty.

He peeled and chopped a small mountain of potatoes into Mama's biggest stockpot, taking over a square of counter space at the bar as much out of everyone's way as possible, and let the family flow around him. Mama flitted from the fridge to the stove, giving instructions and soliciting volunteers. Autumn nudged him to this side or that whenever she needed to get into the cabinets under the counter. The kids buzzed in and out of the room, singing carols – both the renditions they'd have learned for their school pageants and the alternate versions full of mild poop jokes that they probably belted out every chance they got. Mike was still on unofficial cameraman duty, apparently trying to grab as many candid shots as possible, ducking into the room, snapping a few and then drifting back out until everyone stopped paying attention to him again.

The house started out full and only got fuller as suppertime drew in on them. Lydia brought the small feast's worth of food that had finished in her oven, along with her new boyfriend and his daughter. Mama's students – the ones she'd worked most closely with or had discovered either didn't have family to spend the day with, or didn't have a way to get to their families far away – trickled in with gifts of wine and candy and flowers.

It was impossible not to miss Pop (any other year, he'd have been in and out of the kitchen to steal bites of cheese or barbecue, or materializing in the background of Mike's pictures to add bunny-ears to his unsuspecting grandchildren), but there was so much to do and so many people to visit with that it was also impossible to wallow in it. The only drawback was that it had also proven impossible to steal a minute alone with Dean, though it was hard to begrudge that too much when every time he caught sight of his boy, somebody else was wrapping him up in their day: the kids competing for his attention, Autumn putting him to work stirring a saucepan, Mike catching him in the frame of his group shots.

Finally, as dinner time was closing in on them and he was heading in from the garage with a third cooler of drinks, he spotted Mama with Dean at the foot of the stairs, one of her hands reaching up to tilt his face down so that she could press a kiss to his cheek, his head dropping to rest on her shoulder when he wrapped his arms around her.

He set the cooler down in its spot beneath the loaded counter, snagged a couple cans of beer from inside it, and wound his way back through the house. Mama patted his arm gently and pointed toward the stairs as she passed on her way back to the kitchen.

Dean had only made it as far as the first landing, sitting on the carpeted ledge with his long legs stretched out in front of him and a wan smile on his face as he watched Roman's approach.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, claiming a seat beside him and holding a beer out to him.

“Merrier all the time.” Dean raised the can in a salute and popped the top. “Pretty sure this is your shirt, by the way,” he said, curling a couple of fingers into the collar.

“Yours now.” Like everything else he had. Roman opened his own beer and studied Dean over the first sip. “How you doing?”

Dean took a long drink. “I'm okay.” He must not have looked convinced, because Dean slanted a smile his way and knocked his knee easily into Roman's. “Really.” He sighed. “I get it, you know? It wasn't about me.”

“Doesn't mean it's easy, though.”

“What is?” Dean laughed sharply, but sobered when he saw that Roman was still watching him. “I mean, it's still not really about me, right?” He shrugged. “Been thinking about this kid. 'Bout the donation. Doing something worthwhile for a change.”

“You're worth plenty as-is,” Roman said, and reached out to take Dean's hand, keeping it stubbornly in his own, even when he rolled his eyes at him. He set his beer on the step and fished his phone out of his pocket, opening up his most recent chain of texts. “But if you think you want to try it, Nikki's sister works in an oncology clinic and she says she'll answer questions for you. I guess the first step is just a cheek swab and maybe some blood work to see if you're even a match.”

When he held up the screen, he turned to find Dean watching his face instead, his expression melting into something soft.

“You been doing homework? For me?”

He chuckled. “Crazy, right? You'd think I love you or something.”

Dean blinked at that, and Roman put his phone to the side and set his freed hand on Dean's knee at the same time as he gave his hand a squeeze with the other. “You know that, right? I'd do homework and more for you. Any time.”

Dean tightened his fingers around Roman's own and threw his free arm around his neck. Roman felt a kiss and a shaky breath against the side of his head before Dean answered. “And you know you're more than just a soft place for me to land, right?”

“Sure,” he said, shifting the hand on Dean's knee to wrap around his back instead. “But I want to be that, too. For as long as you need.”

Dean pulled back, just far enough to press the next kiss to Roman's mouth instead of his hair. “I'm a pretty needy bastard,” he said when they broke apart. “Think that's going to be a pretty long time.”

“I think I can live with that,” he said, and smiled against Dean's lips when he surged into him again.

 

* * *

 

The snow started falling in earnest around the time everyone had started trickling back into the kitchen for seconds, and by the time they'd sent all the guests home with extra plates - and Autumn had done some kind of witchcraft to fit all the remaining leftovers into the fridge and the kids had been mustered into a first grumpy, then giggling, assembly line to see to the dishes - there was a respectable couple of inches on the ground.

“White Christmas,” Dean said, coming to join him at the window in Pop's study, bumping their shoulders together as they looked across the clean white expanse of the backyard.

Or, at least, Roman was looking out over it, thinking about the snow-angels he hadn't quite promised Nikki and whether he could put his nieces and nephews on the case. When he turned to drop an arm around his boy and haul him in close, he found Dean's eyes soft and steady on his face instead.

“Looks like. Guess we lucked out.” He smiled and did tug Dean into another hug then, pressing a kiss to his jaw and feeling Dean's arms cinch tight around his waist.

He dropped his head onto Dean's shoulder, and if the buzz of small voices from the kitchen or the round of carols Mama was trying to kickstart in the living room had been any louder, he might have missed Dean's fierce whisper.

“Fuck yeah, I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> The pictures of Dean, in-character as Moxley, living on Roman's phone are the second stills in the sets [here](http://apgeeksout.tumblr.com/post/146485494278/timdonst-credit) and [here](http://apgeeksout.tumblr.com/post/127997641118/awesome-ambrose-world-baby-mox). 
> 
> Many and profuse "Thank you! ♥"s to: 
> 
> SapphoisBurning, for her wonderfully warm and cozy art, which you should follow the link below to look at and love up on. (You should also be grateful that she spared you from any number of astonishingly terrible titles I would've inflicted on you; I know I am!) 
> 
> mithen, for listening to me blather about this fic off and on for literally a year and a half /0\ (and crying with me about wrasslin' in general for longer still!) 
> 
> ambruises, for being my first reader on this fic (and braintwin in general!)
> 
> wrasslin' nonnies - you know who you are, even when I don't! - for general cheerleading, moral support, and shared squee

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Merrier All the Time (Comic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603795) by [APgeeksout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout), [SapphoIsBurning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/pseuds/SapphoIsBurning)




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